NFL Playoff Chances

byJohn Ewing

NFL training camps have started. We are now three weeks away from the first preseason game. With the NFL season quickly approaching we got you covered on everything you need to know before the first kickoff. Yesterday we looked at the 2016 NFL Strength of Schedule and coming soon we will produce divisional previews. In the meantime, lets talk playoff chances.

According to bookmaker BovadaLV, the most likely playoff participants are the Green Bay Packers, New England Patriots, Seattle Seahawks. Each team is -500 to make the playoffs. The implied odds say these teams have an 83.3 percent chance to reach the postseason.

The least likely playoff teams are the Cleveland Browns (+600) and San Francisco 49ers (+750). Both squads are in the top ten in hardest schedules next season and according to the oddsmakers, it doesn’t matter who starts at quarterback for them. The implied odds suggest these teams have a 14 percent or less chance of playing past the regular season.

According to the odds, here are the most likely AFC and NFC playoff teams:

Last year the Houston Texans and Washington Redskins made the playoffs, this year (per the odds) the Indianapolis Colts and Dallas Cowboys take their spots.

How predictive are these odds? We will have to wait until the end of the regular season to find out but we can compare them to other preseason predictions. The fine folks at Football Outsiders released their DVOA Playoff Odds report last week. Comparing the betting odds to Football Outsiders projected probabilities there are only minor discrepancies. The NFC is exactly the same but instead of Indy and Denver, Baltimore and Buffalo round out the AFC players in the postseason.

We know parity if king in the NFL. Since 2010, the playoffs have averaged 4.8 new teams each season. Don’t let the odds fool you, there will likely be a few other teams joining the Texans and Redskins on the outside looking in.